My father takes one look at my bleeding hand, tears the corner of his flannel off, and wraps it securely around my wound. “We need to go.”
“What about Charlie!” I feel panicky as anxiety bubbles in my chest. My heart lodges itself in my throat. I’m going to puke up that bite of bread.
“He can handle himself.” My father pulls me away from the scene, cursing under his musty breath as we go, leaving our only friend to fend for himself.
We end up outside of a church that is known to sometimes open its doors on colder nights to people like us.
Worry for Charlie dances on the edge of my mind as I stress over where we will sleep tonight. The church is closed. Thetemperature isn’t low enough for them to open tonight. “Dad, where will we go?”
“The subway,” he tells me with a grim expression.
Things could be worse, but they could also be better.
We end up on the E train with around fifty other homeless people, looking to rest their eyes. I read once in a pamphlet that there is an estimated sixty thousand and growing population of homeless people in New York City alone.
Sometimes the police patrol the cars to make sure we aren’t sleeping, but they don’t generally bother us or make us get off since we aren’t doing anything illegal. My dad and I sit next to each other, taking turns napping on one another’s shoulder, keeping watch, but tonight I think everyone is as equally exhausted.
But not the rats.
They never sleep.
I kick one away as it tries to crawl up my dad’s leg, then pull my feet onto the seat.
We spend two days wandering the streets aimlessly looking for Charlie.
On the third day, my dad finds out from this trick named Cookie, that he is in the hospital with multiple stab wounds. He’s not doing so hot. Guilt washes over me. He was protecting me because I was being stupid. Charlie could die all because I wanted that sandwich. Cookie takes one look at me and my dad and invites us to rest in her room until she gets her next customer.
She lives in a shit building owned by her pimp.
The walls are dingy and filled with holes. The flooring is peeling up at the corners, and it reeks of mold in here, but it’s warm. Warmer than being out in the street.
Cookie is a beautiful woman with the darkest skin I have ever seen. Her hair is in braids that are rolled close to her scalp in a zigzag pattern. I asked her once if she could braid my hair to look like hers, and she laughed.
Her red fingernail presses into my rosy cheek from being out in the cold air. “Get yourself a shower. I’ll warm you up some soup for you.” I nod my head, fighting the urge to cry. I don’t know why Cookie is good to us, but she is. We don’t come by her place often, but when we do, she always feeds me and washes my clothes.
My dad pulls me to the side. “You do as Cookie says. I’m going to the hospital to see about Charlie. I’ll be back later, Hopee.”
I can only nod my head. I’m exhausted. My feet are cold and dragging from all the walking. My toes are numb and feel ready to fall off.
I take a shower and put on clean clothes.
I stare out the window, watching and waiting for my dad.
Three days blur into a week.
A week turns into a month.
Later never comes.
My dad never comes back.
Cookie takes me under her wing. Starts calling me Daisy. Tells me I can’t be Hope anymore. Teaches me to survive.
Teaches me how to use what I got to earn my keep.
Says if I do a good job, I’ll be given my own apartment someday.
Some day never comes.
